OtherEric

Merry Christmas to all here who celebrate it, and a great day anyway to those who do not.

Well, it's great to see you here. Hang in there!

Vampirella 9 thoughts: Cover: It's Wally Wood's only Warren cover and one of only two from Boris Vallejo. It's an odd but effective juxtaposition. Is this the first time we've seen a creator credited on the cover of a Warren magazine? Feary Tales: Excellent work by Cuti and Jones. Vampirella: The Testing: A solid second story from Goodwin & Sutton, starting to show how the character and subplots will work after creating the new setup in the last issue. Monster Bait: Joe Wehrle seems to have mostly worked in fanzines or semi-pro zines, other than a couple stories for Warren, one where he writes, and this one where he draws. I'm not impressed by the artwork at all, honestly. Fate's Cold Finger: A quite morbid story, but very effective. A little darker than my personal tastes run to, but I can't deny the quality of both script and art. The Curse: The cover promotes this as "a Masterpiece by Wallace Wood". When a cover calls something a masterpiece the first time it's published, it's wrong at least 99% percent of the time in my experience. This is one of the rare exceptions, a genuine comic classic showing Wally Wood just knocking it out of the park. And as I've said more than a few times before, my vote for all time greatest comic artist is Wally Wood on a good day, the problem being he had a few too many bad days. This is not one of those bad days. Jack the Ripper Strikes Again: There are frequently stories where I can admire Grandenetti's craft even if I don't actually enjoy it. This is not one of those stories, unfortunately. The Boy Who Loved Trees: Beautiful art by Barry Windsor-Smith in his only Warren story. The script by Smith and Fox is a little weak in a couple places but the underlying idea is marvelous and suits the art well. Vampi's Flames: Worth noting for the Peter Hsu sketch, he'll go on do to do several stories for Warren in the 1980's. The Work Orders for the Day: Alac Justice is a pseudonym for Jack Katz, who only does two stories for Warren but has tons of comic credits going back to the Golden Age. The story is solid enough science fiction, if a bit in the predictable trope category. I can't call this issue anything other than excellent, but it would probably rate an excellent from me if it was the cover, "The Curse", and 59 pages of Captain Company ads. Fortunately it isn't, with several other very good stories creating a very nice package overall.

Do I Paypal Jim the $30 directly, and if so what do I need to do to show I've done it? (Sorry I'm asking something that's been explained here a dozen times already.)

Other than the occasional Dell or Gilberton, it's not often I find pre-code comics for a dollar any more.

As far as I know, that's actually the copy Jim got it from, when I first posted it years ago.

I sent a little as well. I've said it already, but get well soon, Jim. We're looking for your return!

Thank you. Have a wonderful holiday trip!

Some good ones in there. I need several if you have undercopies, the Daybreak 2250, the Alien From Arcturus, Who Speaks of Conquest, and my Man who Japed desperately needs an upgrade

As far as I know, the first editions in the US were all published in order, starting with the early ones under the title of Classic Comics. The numbers were used a second time for the Classics Illustrated Special Issue books, generally with the letter 'A' following the number, but the number wasn't actually on the cover of the Special Issue books. I don't believe the contents were ever used twice on different issues, but most of the issues were constantly reprinted, and only distinguishable by the highest reorder number on the back issue order page. As far as I know, all US editions were printed in the sense that there's no gap between issue numbers at any point, but the UK series (and other international editions) did continue after the US series ended, with new books. And many of the books were reissued with new art, removed art to drop the page count, and revised text, as well as new cover art. The addition of new cover art might or might not involve a change to the interiors as well, they seemed to love changing one on one printing and then later changing the other. So my perception of the chaos of Classics Illustrated is almost completely different from your perception of the chaos of Classics Illustrated. But we can agree on the level of chaos, at least. I look forward to somebody rapidly coming forward to correct my corrections any second now, I'm miles from an expert on the Classics. And for some color, here's the one cover Matt Baker did for the Classic Comics/ Classics Illustrated line:

Agree with the 5.5/6.0, but it's a gorgeous copy relative to the technical grade.

Juggernaut of Space was the only pulp story Ingels did more than a single drawing for:

According to the ISFDB, he had work in the Spring, Summer, and Fall 1944 issues, and Fall 1945 issue, of Planet Stories. I've got the first and last of those. These images are all found online, not my scans. But I think this is all of his pulp illustrations:

It's not a comics code stamp, exactly... it's a drawing of a comics code stamp. I'm guessing the artist included it to make it look more like an American comic?

It's pretty much right in the middle for me on the New Direction books. Nice art, so-so stories.

He has interior illustrations in a few other issues, as well. I don't have all of those (yet).

Cross-posting from the pulp forums since I figure this one will actually be of high interest to the crowd here: Graham Ingels' only pulp cover:

And this completes my collection of Graham Ingels pulp covers. It also begins my collection of Graham Ingels pulp covers, it's his only one: